Gone
by Fangirl Chelle
Summary: Beth is gone, and she has to decide who she is in order to see her friends again. Beth's POV after the events of S4 episode Alone.


Rough hands. Grabbing. Dragging.

Squealing tires. Beth's screams gave way to sobs as her struggling proved useless. In the backseat of the car, she pushed herself as far as she could into the corner. Her back hit the cold, hard plastic of the door and she tensed, waiting for an attack.

Eventually – time was impossible to judge as the car carried her away from her life – her hammering heart slowed. Her ragged breath calmed. The sobs faded into hot tears burning trails down her cheeks. Her captors made no move toward her, saying nothing. She may as well have been a ghost in this vehicle bearing her relentlessly away. Finally she twisted around, settling against the back of the seat. As the night deepened, Beth watched mile upon mile stacking up outside her window.

_I'm never going to see them again_, she thought. Maggie. Glenn. Rick. Judith. Her father. His death was no more final a separation than the one that was being forced on her now. In this world of death and horror, every mile – there went another one – sealed her fate. They would never find her. Would they even look?

_Daryl will_. The thought brought another hiccupping sob. For a couple precious days, she'd allowed herself to hope that maybe her life could still mean something after the prison. Being with Daryl, helping him, had given her a purpose. He had shown himself to her, trusted her. He would look for her. And he was a tracker. Maybe he would find her.

She didn't let her thoughts linger on the truth – that Daryl wouldn't even know where to start looking for her. That this wasn't going to be like tracking someone's stumbling path through the woods. She was in a car, so rare and hard-won a luxury in this new world order. Daryl didn't have a car. He didn't have his motorcycle. It was just him, on foot. Maybe injured. Maybe dead.

Pressing her forehead against the window, Beth considered her options. She wasn't strong. She had no weapons. Up until then, she had always had someone looking out for her. Her dad. Maggie. So powerful and fierce, her sister had turned out to be. Rick, their leader. And since the prison, Daryl. Strong, fragile Daryl who now believed that good people still existed. But in the blink of an eye, Beth was alone with people who took girls from the side of the road. But so far they hadn't really hurt her. So maybe…

And there it was again… That force inside her that allowed her to sing in the face of darkness. The force that bubbled up to the surface when she was least expecting it. Hope. She knew it was crazy and naïve to hope to be found. Even crazier and more naïve to believe that her captors were good. But she couldn't help it. This was just who she was.

"Where are we going?" she asked at long last. Because what else is there to say to people who grab you, shove you into a car, and then drive for mile after mile without saying a word?

"All done crying then?" the driver said, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. He wore an old, tattered Atlanta Braves cap.

Beth nodded, and asked. "Who are you?"

"Name's Joe," the driver said. "This here's Pete." He nodded toward the front passenger seat. "Your buddy in the back is Jimmy. Say hi, Jimmy."

"Hi Jimmy," the guy in the seat next to her said. He grinned, and she saw he was missing a front tooth.

She smiled back, holding back a shudder that threatened below the surface.

"And what's your name, girly?" Joe said. Obviously, he was the leader of this trio.

Beth didn't want to give even that little bit of herself to these men, but she was no good at lying. "Beth," she said. "Where are we going?" she tried again.

"Haven't really decided that, Beth," Joe said. "We were just driving along and Pete here saw you running up to the road. Can't argue with timing like that. Us driving up right then, and you obviously needing a ride."

"I have a friend back there," Beth said, turning to look through the back windshield in spite of herself. "He might be hurt. We need to go back."

Jimmy and Pete laughed, harsh and loud in the confines of the car. Joe just shook his head. "No way anyone's still alive back there. We saw that pack of deadies."

"You don't know that," Beth said, shaking her head and biting back fresh tears. "Daryl's a fighter. He's made it through worse."

"I don't think we're understanding each other, girl," Joe said, glancing up in the mirror again. "We ain't some rescue workers and you ain't in charge here. Might as well forget your friend. He's gone."

_Gone. _

Beth fell silent and pulled her knees up to her chin. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she folded in on herself. Fear bloomed in her gut, sending out tendrils to grip her mind and heart. She felt two possible futures unfurling in front of her, like those two roads diverged in that old poem. She knew that she was facing a choice, deciding who she was going to be. She could be the Beth she'd been for so long, the one who needed shielding and protecting. That Beth would give up here and face facts. Her time was up. She'd had a good run, but she couldn't survive forever. Like she'd told Daryl, she'd be gone someday. She just didn't expect it to be so soon.

Or… And again hope flared up, burning up the fear. She could be the Beth she'd been with Daryl. The one who burned down cabins and sang in the candlelight and killed walkers (or at least one) with her own two hands. That Beth would wait for the right opportunity, and she would escape these bad men. That Beth would do everything she could to survive. She would rescue her own damn self, and then she would find Daryl and they would finish that conversation the walkers had interrupted. Maybe she would kiss him. No matter what happened, that Beth would be someone worth all the trouble all the people she loved had gone through to keep her alive.

When the moment came, she was shocked at how easy it was. Not physically easy. That was actually all scrambling and slashing and absolute terror that maybe she wasn't strong enough. But emotionally, she'd expected it to be harder to kill people. But when the car came to a sputtering stop and Joe announced they were out of gas, Beth tensed again. Jimmy grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the backseat. She knew that her only chance was to act quickly and surprise them. If they all got out of the car and surrounded her, all hope was lost. So she stomped on Jimmy's foot, grabbing his knife from its place on his hip. In the next moment, she slashed at his throat. She didn't pause to watch him fall, springing instead on Pete. She drove the knife into one eye, yanked it out, then buried it in the other. She tried to free the knife again but it stayed stuck.

And then Joe was on her, and she thought for sure she was dead. But suddenly her knee was coming up, in the split second before she even thought to do it, and connected with his groin. As he doubled over, she grabbed his gun and his knife. One bullet in the head and it was all over.

And then she was running as fast as her feet would carry her. Back back back, until her ankle screamed in pain and her lungs were fit to burst. Only then did she slow to a stop, gasping in great ragged breaths. But as soon as she caught her breath, she was off again. She had no idea where she was going. But for a little while at least it was enough to just run, allowing her feet to carry her away from the men who had taken her.

When she just couldn't run any more, she walked. When she could, she hid from walkers. When she couldn't, she killed them. She wished she was better at it. Stronger and smoother, like Michonne or Maggie. Every encounter was a chaotic skirmish that she barely managed to survive. And every time she did, she was faintly surprised.

She followed the road, hoping she might remember how to get back to the house. But when the road she was on dead-ended at a T-intersection, she looked both ways and realized she had no idea which way to go. She stood there as minutes ticked by, indecision paralyzing her. If she went the wrong way, she could be alone for the rest of her short life.

_Alone_. All of her friends gone.

And then a car was pulling up beside her, and a window was being rolled down. And a woman was leaning out and asking if she needed help. Beth bit her lip, looked around, then nodded. The woman got out of the car, put her arm around Beth's shoulders, and murmured softly. Beth wasn't even sure what the woman was saying, but the shush shush of her voice was comforting as she guided Beth into the front passenger seat. When the woman was back behind the wheel and they had begun driving, Beth asked, "Where are we going?"

"Terminus," she said. "You'll be safe there."

"Safe," Beth repeated. She couldn't guarantee she'd ever really feel safe again. But a destination was better than wandering aimlessly. And she knew her friends; they would feel the same way. If she was ever going to see Maggie or Daryl again, she would see them at Terminus. That felt true.

So she would follow this woman with the soft voice to the end of their road. And she would believe that the people she loved would make it there too.

That was just the way she was.


End file.
